APOCALYPSE NOW, and my chainsmoking chair in my back yard is the boat
[May 2025: thanks to everyone who answered. I'm still hoping I can start this second show, but the combination of the Gaza and my infuriatingly bad health has prevented me from doing it so far. I've got 4 trillion ideas for all this, and I'm hoping that if I get some medication shit to level out, I might be able to do a first episode and thus doom myself to doing it on a schedule.]
I've had an idea for a second show – I mean an entirely separate podcast – for more than a year now, and it keeps getting buried or snowed in or Bewitched, Bother, and Bewildered, for reasons you can probably imagine. So, before I finally euthanize this notion, I wanted to ask you all about it to gauge whether it would have any momentum at all:
Despite the rapidly-widening holes in my brain and my spinal ghost infestation, I know more about music than I know about anything else. I've been listening to it and playing it and writing it and recording it and thinking about it for 25+ years, and it thoroughly bums me out to see that music has primarily been slaughtered, processed, and turned into lifestyle wallpaper over the course of my life – not least because I think there's a huge amount of musical information that people would like to know, would find fascinating, would seriously study on their own if they had any decent entry or non-specialist explanation, and there's no longer a mass-cultural forum for any of that. All we've got left is the "Goop On Ya Grinch"-tier of, let's say, "creative nonfiction," and that venue has produced more truly vile writing than, oh, witch-hanging laws, Iran-Contra, the walls of Bob Berdella's house, et many many alia.
So: a show simply to talk about music, meaning music, the actual sounds, not wilted Robert Christgau aphorisms that reek of the exact moment they were written. Episodes about specific songs, episodes about individual albums, or several of an artist's albums, or several albums from several artists and times and places that become something different when you listen to them together. Episodes about how sound works, what the hell recording actually is, the ways that material formats have changed the music they purported merely to "document." Episodes about how instruments or studio gear have changed, which changes how people play the instruments, and what "going into the studio" means, and how the perpetual back-and-forth between music and the way it's recorded is continuously (and most often accidentally) changing both sides of that dyad, all the time.
Music. Songs and records that it would be a shame for you not to hear at least once, and ideas and material processes and history and musical architecture that – if I do my job well enough, and this is the whole point right here – will give you new ears to hear everything you already love, and new things to love, and new ways to find interest in things you may not love but now want to understand. The ubiquity of pseudo-music in its commercial and crowd-controll capacities is a cover-up for a monstrous crime: music has been taken away from the people, it has been slowly suffocated beneath stratum after landfill stratum of foul substances that might resemble music in some superficial aspects but is not of the same kingdom phylum class order family genus species. And I've been at this long enough to hope, at least, that I can give you back some of what They took from you.
Anyway, if that sounds like something you would want to listen to, something I could (I hope) produce in the DEATH/CORNER off-weeks, so at least there's a periodic reason to think about something other than the worst shit in the world, feel free to let me know in the comments. And if you absolutely would not bother with that sort of project, I'd appreciate knowing that as well. Things, especially psychiatric and medical things, are rough enough that I'd have trouble justifying the extra work if nobody really wanted to hear it, which is the main reason I haven't done it already. But if there's any interest, it would be a relief to focus on something I love, and I hope it would help give you new and deeper access to one of humanity's few unambiguous miracles.
Comments (233)
A definite listen from me
THE WORLD NEEDS THIS SHOW. I need this show.
I would definitely listen.
Yes!!
I'm pretty sure I'd love a blog like that.
Many of my favorite episodes of the show have been the music episodes so absolutely; I’ve been excited by the idea of a separate music podcast since you first brought it up.
your best episodes are when you get into the mechanics of lit (paganism and the logic of metaphor may be the peak here) or music (bowie, jazz, whatever). your gift for getting under the hood of art is really what i'm here for. do this show michael. I, at least, will more than happily pay for it and listen to every episode within minutes of release. and probably learn a hell of a lot.
hell yes
I would absolutely listen to this.
ALL IN. Loved your Guitarlords episodes with Boeckner.
Yes, please
I would love this.
I would give it a listen
I’m in. I would love to hear you break down and reassemble The Mars Volta’s first four albums, as well as California and Disco Volante by Mr. Bungle.
would be nothing short of a dream
I think that sounds very interesting - especially the stuff about recording, mediums, and other practical sides of music making as well as how sound works.
Yes please
yes, please
Would sub and also would recommend others to sub
Michael, I’d be happy to subscribe to a new show—I’d love it if Paul co-hosted with you. You two would provide very cool perspectives.
Yes, please.
As someone who could ask you a thousand questions about a thousand things for a thousand hours, any and all chance to get a little bit more insight into something that I am fairly blind on is a chance I am dying for. There are some albums that I have already been wanting the official MSJ certified stamp on. I vote “aye.”
Would still absolutely love this if you can get to it
(first time commenter) I would absolutely love if you did this. I really enjoyed your David Bowie eps.
Hell yeah. There is vast gulf of what I *don't* know about music, its production (both practical and as a consumer product and cultural engine), who becomes popular and why, etc. I'd be interested in listening
Your deep-dives into David Bowie albums and Wayne Shorter and guitar amp tech are some of my faves, so consider this an enthusiastic vote in the affirmative. I've listened to The Truth About Vintage Amps pod multiple times through and the popularity of that show demonstrates a large international audience hungry for arcane knowledge that's previously been gatekept from the public (by specialists) under Capitalism. Your ability to both see and riff coherently on the meaningful context of that information would be incredibly valuable to a whole lot of people imho
Not to muddy you doing a show just about music - which is absolutely an amazing idea and I cannot endorse it enough, as, in my estimation an amazing thoughtful reader then orator of other people's work, I'd really be jazzed to hear you narrate one of your own books? Maybe Lyrics of the Crossing? I have read The Wars Evensong in my own voice but your read was way better than mine.
I’d listen to you narrate paint drying on a wall for 12 hours
what's wild about that, and this isn't necessarily a good thing to say about myself, is that I'm pretty sure I *could* narrate paint drying on a wall for 12 hours. I just need the right point of leverage, and if I can get one foot planted for the swan dive, I can attain the semi-trance state where everything plugs into everything on most occasions. Afteward I'll have no memory of what I said and will feel like I got a face-splitting headache from looking too directly at the sundazzle off the glaciers in Patagonia
Random but this made me think of your comments about how vulnerable ye olde tube tech is to interference. https://youtu.be/OYnShcgXO0M?si=STGdQTNzfWx_tG97 The kicker is that he has a furman power conditioner and he’s still getting all that interference
If he got rid of all that noise by putting a Boss Noise Gate in the FX loop, that means, by definition, it had to be coming from something before the loop in terms of electrical topology, which is just guitarist > guitar (pickups, wiring, pots, output) > amp preamp, and I'm ... say 80% sure what he had going on there was a preamp tube, usually a 12AX7 (or ECC83 in Europe) that had turned microphonic, because >> a modern high-gain amp is pushing the preamp tubes SO close to the edge of their usable amplification already (hence what they call "thermal noise," the background "hhhhhhhhhh" that goes away when you flip to a clean channel or use an old clean amp; I actually kinda like it) THAT, if you've got 3 4 5 6 preamp tubes cranked up to Murder, and then you run that thru any number of power tubes whose entire job (in a high-gain channel-switching amp like this) is to provide a more-or-less clean copy of the preamp signal, maybe a little compression around the edges and EQ sweetening, but substantially the same, except Massively Fucking Loud, and THEN you run that into any loud cab, especially a 4x12, especially an oversized 4x12, especially what I'm guessing is an oversized closed-back 4x12 (so the motion of the speakers that creates the sound, instead of dissipating out the open back, slams up against the closed back and creates a kind of push/pull/push/pull system of large masses of air moving VERY fast at VERY high force, and thus VERY loud), and then especially an oversized closed-back 4x12 with 240 watts' worth of power handling in the form of 4 Vintage 30s, (plus, slight divagation: the wattage ratings on guitar amplifiers are nowhere near an accurate gauge of either output power OR volume, which are 2 separate things. Let us take the example of an old Marshall, your Hendrix or Led Zeppelin Marshall, no master volume, no channel switching, just volume and EQ, and if you want distortion, you gotta crank it up till the phase inverter and power tubes start screaming, right? well that Marshall, an SLP1959 Super Lead, will be rated "100 watts." But that rating is done via a system called RMS, Root Mean Square, and the provisions of RMS have almost nothing to do with the way guitar amps work – essentially, when you see "100 watts" on an amplifier, what that's telling you is "This amplifier can continuously deliver 100 watts of output, **to a listener or device positioned 1 meter away**, with – and this is the crucial one – ***with no more than 5% total harmonic distortion.*** Continuous power means very little in a guitar amp, which is all about PEAK power, all its signals are continually vacillating between positive and negative voltage peaks at hundreds or thousands of times per second, and each of those + or – peaks translates, via the output transformer and the former/voice coil/magnet of the speaker[s] in question, to a forward or backward movement of the paper speaker cone, usually from 50-80 times per second up to 15,000-20,000 times per second, although those fast frequencies will be very small and generally on the brink of sub-audible, so let's say a Marshall 100-watt Super Lead is going to create significantly violent PEAK fluctuations of the speaker from ≈75 times per second up to 12,000 times per second, and none of that has anything to do with CONTINUOUS power output, BUT still more diabolical in this case: **no more than 5% total harmonic distortion.** The entire point of turning up a 100-watt Marshall is to get lots, lots, lots more than 5% total harmonic distortion, and depending on how you're using it, that distortion may occur in tons of places other than, or in addition to, the power section, which is what RMS is measuring. So if you crank up an old Super Lead and hit it with an overdrive pedal, even a fairly gentle one, say a Tube Screamer or a Boss SD-1, you will have a signal that's distorted • at the input of the amp, because it's getting there distorted from the guitar/pedal, • all through the preamp, • in the phase inverter, • in the power tubes, • and probably in the output transformer, which is what you WANT, and which is exactly what RMS does not measure. All of which is to say: I have seen "100-watt Marshalls" peak at 140, 150, even 170 watts, and once you introduce intentional, controllable preamp overdrive with the first Mesa/Boogies, somewhere around 1971, and then channel switching – and TRUE channel switching is a surprisingly recent development, from a design point of view, but in terms of what guitarists would USE or HEAR as 2 different channels, that's also probably somewhere in the ’70s, and probably down to Mesa or Dumble, and there were antecedents as early as the mid-’60s half-transistor/half-tube amps like the UL series, the Conqueror, the Defiant, etc., which have the very odd historical place of having been all over REVOLVER, SGT. PEPPER'S, and the first couple Led Zeppelin albums, and then basically never used by anyone ever again; if you want to go technical about it, which of course I do, most "channel-switching amps" were not truly 2 channels until the late ’80s or ’90s, most of them [and the Dumble Overdrive Special is the classic exemplar] were single-channel amps that allowed you to switch on, or off, an EXTRA bit of preamp circuitry at the end of the channel, which meant the "clean channel" or "channel 1" was always on, in its entirety, and you were switching in or out a little chunk of drive boost circuitry tacked onto the end of "channel 1," which is to say, that's not a channel-switching amp, that's a one-channel amp with a switchable gain boost; off the top of my head, the first true multi-channel amp might've been the Mesa/Boogie Mark IV in 1992 – anyway, once you're getting amp distortion on purpose, and you're not doing it by running the guitar through a pedal-type device that will provide solid-state clipping before the signal ever reaches the amp, you're doing it with cascaded preamp gain stages that are PURPOSELY designed to overload each other and then filter and edit the overloaded sound in various ways, that measurement of **no more than 5% total harmonic distortion** is basically meaningless), BUT, as I seem to recall I may have been saying in the earlier paragraphs of this excursion, you take an amp whose preamp tubes are designed to create as much gain as they can without blowing up, then you put that through a power section, a cab, and a set of speakers that are all designed to make whatever's happening in that preamp as LOUD as humanly possible – you're going to start finding weird little sonic artifacts picked up by those preamp tubes, many of which were ALWAYS present, you just couldn't hear the interference they were picking up until you harnessed that set of preamp tubes to a military-industrial-scale battery of Make Loud devices. And that was the simplest possible way to say this: if he's already running through a power conditioner, and if the noise is intermittent and unpredictable even with the same amp, I would bet one hundred (100) American dollars that he's got one or more preamp tubes on the edge of going microphonic in the amps under examination, and because their output has been made so enormously loud, any one of those preamp tubes picking up noise from a lighting rig, a ventilation system, a refrigerator, an elevator, etc. – noise still present but inaudible at practice volume – is getting hyper-magnified until the amp at idle sounds like a cement truck.
Guitarlords ride again
Make music analog again (even if you practice with digital amp modelers)
yes, please!!!
If D/C is at least partly a stream of consciousness, then continuing recording when that stream wanders into music seems perfectly sensible.
Michael, please do this, and please have Paul on for some episodes!
Absolutely, would love this!
Yes Michael! Say anything about music. i can't tell you how much holdworth i've listened to. actually i can. youtube tells me it's 63 hours in 2024 (a very incomplete count). All thanks to you. For a music podcast my money is already yours.
This sounds lovely. I was a sound engineer once upon a time. I'd love to hear you speak on it.
There are so many artists I would love to hear you expound on
Loved the ep on guitars and synthesis. A music focused show would be amazing
Well kid, it’s 200 votes or so to 3. Got any other ideas?
Would be cool
The way you talked about jazz in that one series got me all excited to work on and think differently about my own art, even though it’s not always related to music. If there were a whole podcast dedicated to that kind of approach to talking and thinking about music I’d be elated.
Yes, hell yes. Would especially love to hear you talk more about jazz, I’ve loved your brief forays into Wayne Shorter and Charlie Parker on the show before. I have two degrees in jazz performance and there are things you were saying that I’ve never heard discussed by anyone else. Obviously I am incredibly interested in hearing you cover all other genres too, and music technology and science, which is a huge blind spot for my conservatory-brain-rotted ass
Hell yea
Yes. I would like to know that music still means anything, and that art isn't dead. But if all you have for me is bad news, I'll listen to that too.
Oh it still means everything, and art can never be dead, it's just a question of finding the right music for your cognitive or imaginal state, whether it's from yesterday or 400 years ago. They can't take THAT away from you. They can beat choke hogtie waterboard overdose and prey upon it, but your imagination can't be killed, it just has to be thawed out & remapped sometimes
I wouldn’t because music already takes up most of my life and thoughts, i’m sure i’m in the minority though. I did enjoy the bowie ones where you tied it into other shit. Off topic, but thanks for the recommendation for Dedication by Andrew Hill, I had that on repeat for a while.
I would love to hear this. I posted about it on the Discord (the bagel fuckers one) and got ten thumbs up and seven thumbs down so make of that what you will
Would listen, prob best if you leave Lou Reed out of it
Sounds neat
Yes, I would absolutely be down with listening to you talk about music. It’s my favorite topic to hear you discuss
I mean I would be extremely interested in hearing more about what you think about This Heat or your own project the nerve institute. The episodes that you did on Bowie were great and I looking forward to hearing more
Hell fucking yeah
Aw yus
Talk about swag and how to both acquire, and maintain, swag. Also, I love you, parasocial friend and podcast host.
totally would love this
Would love to hear you talk more about specific albums or artists so yeah!
Yes please.
Id love that
i’d love to listen to anything you have to say, regardless of topic. that being said, don’t stretch yourself too thin, do this only if you feel that you have the bandwidth to do it. we all care about ya
Absolutely
Do it. Sounds fun. Even if some episodes may end up seemingly esoteric to some (probably a confession) you sound excited as hell about it. How could that be anything but great?
Yes
Look at all Barry Harris vids you can especially the ones from The Hague. This is the keys to the kingdom. His 6th diminished system is one of the most important synthesizing inventions to happen in 400 years, it’s changed the way I see everything.
100% yes
Two thumbs up
Eh everyone else has already echoed what I'd say so I'll meaninglessly throw my voice into the void and scream that yes. I loved the Bowie episodes and used to consider myself Not A Bowie Guy but I went back to some of his albums and had a better appreciation after listening to the Bowie episodes. Have also been enjoying your breakdown on Led Zepplin on Twitter. Also I'm addicted to Gold & Youth so thanks for introducing us to them. Dream Baby is amazing. Can I also say I loved the David Lynch episodes too? I know that's more JUDGE Movies' thing but I wouldn't mind more work with your bro over there in some crossover episodes on movies.
This is an enthusiastic yes from me.
I would love this.
Yes please. The shittier music has gotten over the years the less I listen to it, even the stuff I used to love. Hearing your music episodes has me checking out your recs, most recently selling England by the pound! I would definitely listen and could probably get my bf to listen too!
I would definitely not like this. Not a music guy, but I’m sure your music podcast would be great.
Ye
Plz do this!
Life long musician and music scholar here. Yes. Do this. My only problem with it is that I already bought a guitar pedal because of you and hope not to be tempted to spend more money on gear.
Would love to hear this
As a Music Consumer who listens to but doesn't really *hear* it, this would be a cool show. I would like to know more about being a Music Enjoyer.
1. Yep. 2. Like everyone else, loved the Bowie eps and even the jazz talk, art theory etc. 3. Maybe once every month or two with a guest each time(Boeckner, your brother, etc). Because there’s the solo MSJ, minotaur in the maze, that we all love and sometimes worry over. But then there’s also the MSJ-talking-to-other-people that really lights up. Both the same guy, though the former placebo self* may not fully recognize the latter. *Call it “The Recorder”.
compromise same show but you have to mention bowie every 5 minutes
I loved your episodes on Station to Station and would be psyched to hear you go that far in depth with other artists. Please have at it!
Great idea, I don't think it's too astray from the form of the current show? How modern music is consumed kind of links in with a lot of what you've delved into about synthesis.
I'm no musician but I loved the episodes your earlier Bowie episodes and the eps you did with Dan, so I'm 100% in for this.
Yes!
God, yes. You and musical criticism go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Yes, please, thank you
Yes. The episodes on how guitar amps work changed my understanding of music, hearing, and sound. If you do this, I hope you run the mic thru a pedal that has the “insane” button stuck on.
i would love to listen to that. i barely have a novice/basic understanding of music, so as always i would be very happy to lean on your immense knowledge
1000000%
Lets fucking gooooo
Big yes from me. Been following you for years now and you’ve interludes me to so much music, literature, and film that I never would have found. Because of your Bowie episodes, I’ve probably listened to every one of his albums somewhere between a dozen to three dozen times. And there has been much more too.
could you get Beockner on for another 3 parter, or 6?
Yes
Definitely.
Yea
Absolutely would listen!
Yea
Yes 🙏
Absolutely yes Wayne Shorter ep made me obsess over him for weeks
It would definitely be worthwhile.
Assuming that what I laughingly refer to my career is still paying me cash money by next year, i would stump the fuck up for this.
YES AND GOD YES and please
yes incredibly down would absolutely listen no doubt about it
Do whatever makes you happy king. But if such a show existed I would 100% listen
Honestly this sounds amazing, please do it
i would definitely listen. last night when you were talking about drummers on twitter - i could follow your meaning, but what you were saying about indian rhythms and linearity, just to pick 1.5 topics out of many, would be very interesting to hear in an audio format, etc. if the dwarf god of this universe allowed me to afford it consistantly i would even pay you a second 5 dolllars for this. make it 10 if one of the episodes is called "Death Is Just 'On The Corner'" and it's about Miles Davis's On The Corner
I would listen to such a thing
hell yeah dude- I will say that most music media drastically overestimates how much (at least I) know to begin with, so it’d probably help at least myself if you did it vonnegut style and pretended you were an anthropologist explaining music to sad wistful aliens from the deep time future and conducted yr analysis from this general starting point but really do you, everything you put out is fukkin chronnybearz
After reading the glorious thread you did about Zeppelin's discography all I could think was that I wished there were more episodes of DEATH/CORNER specifically dedicated to music. The ones you've already done turned me on to This Heat, Scott Walker, and Eric Dolphy besides completely changing how I listen to Bowie and Zappa. I can't count how many times I've listened to Joe's Garage at this point, but every time I wonder what I'd learn from your perspective on what's going on musically, besides any insight into the L. Ron Hoover stuff. All that to say, yes, please for the love of whatever's left of God's magnificently decomposing corpse, a music show, please. And even if God's dead Dan Boeckner isn't and I might be the only one saying this but I wished there were another seven hours of the guitar amplification history series
Yeah man, I would listen to that. I’d look forward to it, even.
Yes please
The Bowie and Boeckner shows were great. You also introduced me to This Heat (thank you!). Even when I disagree with you (Velvet Underground>Zappa), I always learn something when you talk tunes. Is it too much to hope you’re sitting on a trove of insight and analysis re Brian Eno? Would also love a deep dive into Pynchon’s use of music.
absolutely need to hear you do a deep dive into Pynchon & music. "as [...] always sez"
Yes!
Brother not to get graphic but I would cum
Please do this and take my money
I love music more than pretty much anything else and hate that it has less cultural cachet than at any point in my life. I’d definitely listen to this.
Sounds a little frothy. Can you make it count?
10,000% would inject it straight into my psyche
i don't even know much about music but i actually listened intently to every episode you did about musical equipment, so not only do I vote yes, I suspect that many people you wouldn't expect would also
God yes if guitar gods was a sneak peak then let’s fully ascend
Absolutely interested
I didn't even finish reading the proposal and say HELL YES. Please explain "compression for idiots".
Absolutely
Absolutely not I want more podcasts about how everyone is secretly a Nazi
"musical information that people would like to know, would find fascinating, would seriously study on their own if they had any decent entry or non-specialist explanation" is absolutely something I'm looking for. and I know a lot of people who I would tell to listen to it too.
Yes please
I’d listen. Also want to know if it is still OK to admire Lester Bangs
Yes God fuck now please
Yes it’d love to hear but honestly less Bowie stuff because I really don’t understand the appeal, the sound nor the lyrics do nothing for me….but I’m a dumb slav who likes a sound and listens to it without much thought behind lyrics. In fact I often ignore the lyrics because they’re ruining the good sounds. So if we’re asking for things, please more about how sounds can illicit moods or whatever and less about any specific persons discography.
Damn after looking through the comments guess I’m alone in the no Bowie shit. But ya, all I know about him is he fucked some child groupie like the rest of the 70s scum and what I’ve heard of his music sounds like every other “I like to dress up like a lady aren’t I subversive” act of the era. So obviously I’m dumb but ya if we’re asking for things….
Yes
That’s a thorough and resounding hell yeah from me. The Bug Dungeon episodes were some of my early favorites. Those alone changed how I listen to/understand music. Would love to hear more of your thoughts and continue to bend my ear
yeah your bowie stuff has been exemplary so let's have more music chat
I'm in. I need some musical education and I trust your taste and knowledge, Mike.
I'd very much like to hear that
Very much so interested
hell yeah i'd love it
Sounds amazing ❤️
I'm here for this for sure
20 eps elaborating the forms of space in sound please
Yes!!!
Please do it! I would love and benefit greatly from this!
i, for one, would love a second series about music and i hope it happens. i think we really value your voice on this subject. hope you're well, love the show
I’m for it
Yes please!! I love all the previous D/C music episodes, would love to hear you talk about Mars Volta, the Beatles, Scott Walker, more Bowie, etc.
YES!
Yes
I think it would be refreshing to hear you talk about topics that don't exclusively cause you psychic pain
Would enthusiastically support this and willing to pay for it as a separate show
Music is the magic that springs from the human condition, but the constant distraction from distraction by distraction that floods in every day at the crossroad of social media and lethal colonialist imperialism isolates us even from that - from what used to be called the human condition. Your contribution to bending us back to the music that thrives at the center of life would be very much appreciated!
I would be very interested in music content. Would love to hear someone talk about music that isn’t a complete blow hard.
That would be great, really like your (brief) pieces on jazz. I’d like to hear you play a bit as well.
I mean I may not have ever listened to Wayne Shorter had it not been for your discussion of his music - so I say YES!
Cannot find strong enough terms to describe how much I think you should do this. I’ve learned more about music, music history, and recording from your discussions than from anywhere else in my life. With haste, brother
Fine, but for payment you either get something from the restaurant or A beer from the fridge, nothing on tap, AND I WILL HIT ON YOUR GIRLFRIEND!
Bring it on mike
YES PLEASE DO THIS
Do it, nerd
Yeah, absolutely
As the Bowie episodes were what originally drew me in, it's a resounding hell yeah. Are you familiar with Andrew Hickey's A History of Rock Music in 500 songs? He's the type to preface an episode on The Byrds with a lengthy discussion on modal jazz.
I would love to hear it if you feel up to producing it.
Absolutely 100% would be interested. I’ve been checking in on the LZ thread all week and would love more similar analysis. Relatedly, I am once again imploring MSJ to listen to Hellfire by black midi or the new Greep album and report back on it
Hell yeah do it
Yes!! That would be really wonderful
I'd absolutely love a show like that and would happily upgrade my sub/ pay a separate fee for it! we need more Judge shows on this earth...
Yes love the music/recording episodes and have always found your music threads on twitter super insightful (the recent long thread on zeppelin was great). Would you ever do a synth follow-up to the guitarlords stuff?
Hey MJ i’m all for this idea! The guitarlord and amplord episodes actually got me to consider “hmmm what the fuck makes my guitar go BRRRRRRRRRR?” and the Bowie episodes gave me an appreciation of music I didn’t resonate with at the time. Would love to hear from you about how you approach songwriting and recording, memories from playing gigs, and just generally what you feel about certain albums, interviews or chats with other musicians etc P.S. Nerve Institute World Tour when?
I was thinking the other day about how you floated this idea on twitter a couple months back and my disappointment when it never materialized.
Hell yeah dude!
The three guitar episodes you did with Boeckner were amazing. You should definitely pursue this idea.
Yes please, have been hoping for this for a while. Your eps on guitars/effects with Dan B are some of my favorite listens of any pod
Yes, please.
That sounds awesome. Music is in such a shitty state right now, not least of all because of how bad and copy/paste music criticism is. Hearing you talking about music sounds refreshing as hell tbh
Yes! I'm sure it'd be fantastic.
Do it
Count me in! Would you create an entirely separate Patreon page, or would you do something like Bryan Quinby recently did for Guys and simply add a new Death/Corner tier for the music episodes?
Hell yeah brother. Music is basically all I have in this world, I’m obsessive over it the way you are, we’ve got similar taste, and you’re my favorite podcaster. On a side note: what do you think of the band Swans?
Swans are dead
Yes! Please make the music show, it sounds like something you really want to create, which is the best place for it to come from.
Yes. As a fellow music obsessive, yes just do it.
Yes please!
So fucking psyched about this, would subscribe instantly
I would love nothing more the episodes on music are my favorite ones
Claro que si por la Musica. I’ve already voted on Basketball but I’ll leave a third show vote again for that, as well!
True story: when Brent Barry was on the Spurs, he instituted a tradition called White Boy Wednesday, and if they had a Wednesday game, the whole team had to listen to shit like Pearl Jam in the locker room & at shootaround
I would love it. I mean I definitely do not share your taste in music but you and Jimmy Falun Gong have gotten me most out my little taste corner. I hope you include lots of nerdy shit about production too, plz. It’ll be weird now that Gen Z wants to listen to tapes maybe they’re rediscovering the joy of listening via albums (someone on coffee with Ola Englund was talking about you no longer have the same method for putting your album together (eg intense slow intense songs) because of Spotify). Just don’t wind up looking like Rick Beato, okay?
Also if you would start “recording gear and what it is used for and how to use it” podcast I would subscribe. While I don’t have space for it, I’m lost as hell when it comes to rack gear like channel strips and how you’d put all that together with a patch bay and a mixing console and and and. Maybe that can be a madman tier subscription content. My current recording stuff is a zoomR20, a SE Electronics VR1 ribbon mic, sm57s and an sm58, a WA14 clone of the AKG414, an Aston Spirit, and a Sennheiser 906. I’m sure the Zoom has some good functionality but I use it like it’s my old Tascam 4 track.
I want this show to happen
Yes please, I would absolutely love and happily pay for that. Also wanted to say that I'm one more of those people whose way of understanding and experiencing a lot of things has been profoundly changed by listening to your work, in all the good ways, so thank you immensely.
I’ve been silently praying for you to make a show like this. I always love hearing your thoughts on music. Also thanks for the soft machine recc!! ‘Third’ is getting me through work a lot lately
Of course we'd listen. But—just another idea—what if it was WRITTEN instead? Your writing style, even just in posts like this, is such a joy to read. If you did a written music blog/newsletter/substack you embed links to full songs, albums, imagery. And save your voice.
Your insights on the music and recording episodes you've done have been really fascinating. You have to do it, regardless as it sounds like it brings you joy. If you do a zappa series, will you do a playlist? Unsure where to start with him. By the way, what's your opinion on David Bermans records?
Absolutely. I’d pay extra for a music show. Your current Zep thread is incredible
And I’d specifically I’d love a Zep ep since I’m sunsetting my twitter use and haven’t been catching but bits and pieces of the thread.
Yes please!
I’m in!
I’m in.
shutupandtakemymoney dot jpg
Your music/ guitars, amps and effects episodes are some of my favorites. I'd be very glad to hear more in the same vein.
I’d love a music show! The Bowie album episodes are some of my favorites
the second-ever episode of your show that i heard was the one about Bowie's "Let's Dance," and it is not really a stretch to say that it set off an unlikely chain of events that has changed my life in some unimaginably beautiful ways, so i vote yes
lets do ittttt
Sounds like a good mental track switch for the pointsman. Illuminate aspects, such as the relationship between the backing vocal and the lead guitar in the bridge/turnaround on James Browns' "Bewildered"
Yes yes yes yes yes please
Would love it, loved the episodes on amplification and electric guitars. Also read this in your voice lol
do it mike! the zeppelin thread on twitter has been great. would love a similar sort of thing for Steely Dan or Aphex Twin or Tales From Topgraphic Oceans or hell even Kanye would actually be fascinating since it spans so much (good and bad).
Just a heads up, Felix Biederman went on an episode of Chris Wade and Molly Mary O'Brien's podcast to talk about Kanye, I remember it being pretty interesting (it was in like 2018 though so much has changed)
Would definitely love to hear your thoughts on music. Sounds like a great idea to me.
I would absolutely subscribe to that.
Pro.
Sounds good to me. I love that stuff. I’ve sent people some of your gear episodes for homework. lol
Yes this sounds incredibly valuable and interesting. To be fair, if you offered any kind of additional glimpse into your world view I’d probably jump at it no matter the topic, but this is a topic that deeply interests me and that I’ve wanted to learn more about for a while but have struggled to find the time and energy (and entry point) to sit down and learn about it, and it’s something I have found the people around me have less and less interest in.
👍
I genuinely was just thinking about this yesterday. I know you had mentioned the idea a couple times here and there and I had always hoped something would come of it. Genuinely, the guitar episodes, the jazz episodes, and the recent ones on recording are of the best you’ve done. As someone trying to dip their toe into both writing and recording music, and staring down into the infinite abyss, your knowledge and ability to relay it in an exact and thought-provoking way is an invaluable resource. I’d happily throw some extra bucks your way for a new show, even if its a once in a blue moon thing. Just know you’ve permanently altered the way my neurons fire (for better and for worse, but mostly better lol) and your work is greatly appreciated🫡
Being your father I'm somewhat biased, but having said that: our conversations about music I thought I knew (and here let's go with the Beatles) allowed me to hear new things in songs I'd heard a hundred times before. And finding out how they got certain sounds or what they had to invent to record the sounds they were hearing in their heads made everything way more interesting and I'm guessing a whole bunch of other people will feel the same way.
Yeah i would absolutely listen to it. I think its obvious to a lot of people that music sucks ass now, no one takes it seriously and no one seems to know or care what they're missing. I, for example, can easily see this but I don't have any of the technical knowledge to explain why or what specifically happened to music. Side note, no one wants to sound like an indie asshole, but the way people defend their corporate slop pop music and get so angry when you point out how ass it is is one of the most infuriating things in the world
Your threads on Sabbath and Zeppelin made me revisit their discographies for the first time since high school and I've been listening to almost nothing else since. Having even more of your thoughts on them or anything else music related in a podcast form would be a dream come true.
yes please
Yes. Would also love to hear you tie in musical themes presented in Pynchon’s work, the harmonica passage in (I think?) ATD. Maybe it’s GR, can’t recall at the moment
I may be biased, but please do and do not hold on the gear talk. (Honk/love the comment for popular consensus?)
👂 my ears are yours lord
I'm pretty sure this is going to be a unanimous yes, both because of course it's going to be interesting but also it'll be good for keeping your and our marrows fit and free of malevolence
I’m all for it! I’d like to hear your thoughts on bird-song too!
Go on then
Pitter-patter, let’s get at ‘er
I'd love it.
I would listen to that! Would it be solo, or cohosted with your brother, or you with semi-regular guests? In any event, I’m in.
Sounds like an excellent idea, your episodes on guitars/amps with Dan Boeckner were great, and I’ve always wanted to hear more in that vein, since music is clearly so important to you. Maybe you can make me like Allan Holdsworth?
I love the music episodes of your current podcast, and would definitely listen to an "MSJ talks about music" spinoff.
I would 100% be a listener, your Bowie episodes are some of your best work!
i would 100% listen to this
Would also appreciate something like an essay here and there!